For a long time Joakim Soria was a rare bright spot on terrible Royals teams, closing out their few late-inning leads with dominance, but now that the Royals are playing a little better and the influx of young talent has started migrating to Kansas City he’s struggling.

Soria blew a save and took a loss yesterday, allowing three runs to the Orioles as his ERA ballooned to 5.18. Early season ERA figures can be misleading, particularly for relievers with just 15-20 innings, but Soria’s other numbers paint a similarly gloomy picture.

Prior to this season he struck out 9.9 batters per nine innings, but that has dropped to 6.1 per nine innings so far this year. Similarly his walk rate has risen from 2.5 per nine innings to 4.7 per nine innings. And he’s allowed opponents to hit .268 with a .774 OPS after previously holding them to .197 with a .546 OPS.

Twenty bad innings hardly means Soria is washed up at age 27, but his ERA rising from 2.01 to 5.18 while his secondary numbers all collapse and his average fastball velocity falls from 91.9 miles per hour to 90.3 mph is worrisome for an improving team that may soon have a whole lot more late-inning leads for their stud closer to protect. Remarkably, if you remove Soria’s numbers the rest of the Royals’ bullpen has a 3.79 ERA.

Former Mets catcher Johnny Monell signed a contract with the KT Wiz of the Korea Baseball Organization, per a report by Chris Cotillo of SB Nation. The 30-year-old originally struck a deal with the NC Dinos on Thursday, but the deal appeared to fall through at the last minute, according to Cotillo’s unnamed source.

Monell last surfaced for the Mets during their 2015 run, batting a dismal .167/.231/.208 with two extra bases in 52 PA before the club DFA’d him to clear space for Bartolo Colon. While he’s had difficulty sticking at the major league level, he’s found a higher degree of success in the minor league circuit and holds a career .271 average over a decade of minor league play. He played exclusively in Triple-A Las Vegas during the 2016 season, slashing .276/.336/.470 with 19 home runs and a career-high 75 RBI in 461 PA.

The veteran backstop appears to be the second MLB player to join the KT Wiz roster this offseason, as right-hander Donn Roach also signed with the club last month on a one-year, $850,000 deal.

Brewers’ right-hander Phil Bickford received a 50-game suspension after testing positive for a drug of abuse, per the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Shaikin. This is the second time Bickford has been suspended for recreational drug use, as he was previously penalized in 2015 after testing positive for marijuana prior to the amateur draft.

Bickford was selected by the Giants in the first round of the 2015 draft and was later dealt to the Brewers for lefty reliever Will Smith at the 2016 trade deadline. He finished his 2016 campaign in High-A Brevard County, pitching to a 3.67 ERA, 10.0 K/9 rate and 5.0 BB/9 over 27 innings.

Two other suspensions were handed down on Friday, one to Toronto minor league right-hander Pedro Loficial for a positive test for metabolites of Stanozolol and one to Miami minor league outfielder Casey Soltis for a second positive test for drugs of abuse. Loficial will serve a 72-game suspension, while Soltis will serve 50 games. All three suspensions are due to start at the beginning of the 2017 season for each respective minor league team.

We are very disappointed to learn of Phil’s suspension, but we fully support the Minor League Baseball Drug Prevention and Testing Program and its enforcement by the Commissioner’s Office. Phil understands he made a mistake, and we fully anticipate that he will learn from this experience.